A Story I Never Heard

While I was finding useful links to the incidents that killed the spooks listed on my Memorial Day post, I came across this story regarding the EC-121 Willy Victor shootdown by the North Koreans. The author is not named, but it was purportedly published as a letter in CRYPTOLOG (the journal of the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association, NCVA.)


"ROOM 5--EMPTY
Two of the CTs came from NSGA Hakata (across the bay from Fukuoka, Japan)
(also known as US Army Field Station Hakata and Air Force Hakata Air
Station. The two men were CTC Richard "Snuffy" Smith and, as my memory
serves, CT2 Joe Tesmer, They went TAD to Kamiseya the day prior to the
flight.
Concerning the flight. I was on duty in Room One of the Operations
building at the time of the shootdown. (Morse collector). Taking a break, I
was on my way to the snack bar and had to walk past rooms two through six
before intersecting the aisle where the snack bar was located.
The Air Force collectors were in room five.
As I walked down the hall and past the AF room five I heard emergency air
tracking coming across an open speaker. I looked in the room and there we
no operators at their positions. None. I immediately ran back to room one,
dialed up the frequency on the "floaters" position and started copying the
tracking. By that time it was too late, although our P&R shop sent out an
alert.
As to the AF people who should have been at their positions, they were
scattered around the building doing various personal things. The fallout
was that the 2nd LT and the senior NCO on duty were reprimanded and I
believe, both denied continued service past their existing contracts.
I've always felt that if someone had remained in room five, our plane
would have been alerted and would have broken its track and headed back to
Japan.

This is a story I had never heard. For some reason it never made it into the lore around the shootdown. The idea that operators responsible for monitoring the air tracking would abandon their positions during a mission is horrifying. That such negligence, resulting in the loss of an aircraft and crew, might go unpunished is equally disturbing.

Of course, the procedures we relied on to keep us aware of enemy observation and intentions in the 1980's may have been the result of changes made after the loss of the Willy Victor, the USS Pueblo, and the attack on the USS Liberty. Those three years, 1967, 1968, and 1969 were dark for Navy Cryptologists. I just amazes me that we ever could have been so casual about it.

More on Veterans' Day

MCO at Blackfive wrote this in 2006


"...Most vets have never seen combat in the sense we think of it. But every single solitary one of them has contributed in vital ways to the success of our combat efforts and making this the finest military ever. Without those who support the combat troops, success would impossible. Without the wrench turners, truck drivers, fuel handlers, cooks, clerks and all those like them, the greatest military the world has ever seen is an "also ran."

It doesn't matter what a vet did during his or her service, it matters that he or she chose to serve and do whatever vital job they were assigned to the best of their ability. It isn't about medals, it isn't about glory, it isn't about what job they did. It is about the fact that when their country called, they stood up and answered. They are all, every one of them, heroes.

To all the vets out there - Happy Veteran's Day"

It applies to the all the men and women who served. When you go to that 60th anniversary reunion, it doesn't really matter to the nation who was an undesignated striker, who was a plane captain, or a machinist mate. What matters to the nation is that you were there when they needed you.

On Veteran's Day

On the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month, a salute to America's Veterans. Also a salute to the wives and husbands of those who served. While we were out flying, riding, or walking somewhere, they held down the home front. And worried.

Years later my wife told me of how her heart would sink if they saw an official car with people in dress uniforms drive into housing during the day. Those of us deployed mostly knew what were we facing, and what we were facing it with, and whether the day was going to be relaxing on a beach somewhere or out on a mission. For those at home, we were just gone. Away. In danger. The stress of that not knowing and nagging worry must have been hard to bear. But they did. They waited for us.

So on Veteran's day, while we remember the service of the veteran, pause a moment and thank those who give him something to come home to.

NY-23 is following the lead of GA-10

As I listen to the coverage and posturing over the significance of the upset of the GOP establishment in the NY-23 Congressional election, I am baffled at the commentary about how new this is.

It's only new because the GOP establishment is just now starting to get it. (They didn't understand the Tea Party movement in April.) But for those who were looking, this rumbling made its first appearance back in 2007 in the special election to replace Charlie Norwood.

There was a heavy primary field, and I wrote about my discomfort with the establishment candidate, Jim Whitehead, at the time. But he wound up "coming out on top of the ten-candidate June 19 special election with 43.5% of the vote to Broun’s 20.7%"

Then in a surprise runoff, although Esquire humbly labeled it the "The Least Important Election in U.S. History," Paul Broun came from behind to win.

Now take a look at Broun's primary numbers - 20%... that's about the same that Hoffman was getting as an anti-establishment candidate (before the big guns started endorsing him).

The core has been unhappy for a while now.

BZ to John Nichols at the Nation. He got it. He wrote about it at the time.

"Whitehead responded by attacking Broun, using the standard anti-gay, anti-crime rhetoric of the party's congressional leadership.
It didn't work. And there is a lesson here for those who suggest that the dip in the popularity of Congress is merely a problem for Democrats. The disdain for Washington's way of doing things appears to be bipartisan."

We are still on that trajectory. Is the GOP awake yet?

I like the backdrop...

Who knows how the command picked who got to be up there? Are these guys the local Sailors of the Quarter, Sailors of the Year?



If ANYTHING about selecting them based on the way the look crosses your mind, then you have been poisoned by the Diversity bullies. If they were actually selected based on that.... well shame on us.

When Will the President Take Responsibility for It All?

We're nine months into the Obama administration and the economy is still in the tank, the federal government is spending 1.4 TRILLION dollars more than they collected in taxes this year, and the "strategy" in AFG is adrift. But we still hear blame being directed to the Bush administration... they gave us a the financial crisis, a deficit, nothing in Afghanistan, ad nauseum.

All the while, pursuing the government takeover of medicine in the country, because we are in a self-declared, media hyped, politically driven "crisis." Actually letting those in Congress decide decide what goes into the trough.

No ownership. No responsibility. If the economy were rebounding, the budget reasonable, the war being won...the President would rightly take the credit that his actions were having a positive effect. But none of that is happening. The President needs to own these problems, if his approach isn't working, then he needs to change.

Hmm... maybe in his view it IS all working. Manufacturing a crises so deep, only the gummit can save us?

What's the end game here?

Why is the President picking on Fox?

This administration may be many things. But they are not stupid. While their foreign policy to date has been marked by an apparent lack of long range vision, these guys know politics - and they play hardball.

Today's NY Times piece by David Carr concludes that "trading punches with cable shouters seems a bit too common" I just have a hard time believing that the White House would be playing like rank amateurs in the world of power politics.

So what is the end game? Take this quote about Fox from White House Communications Director Anita Dunn in the same article. "we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave."

Then here's Rahm and Axelrod today too, a report that "Both advisers made the point that Fox is not a legitimate news outlet..." quoting Axelrod as saying about Fox "...as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization."

Another site gives Rahm's quote in his "State of the Union" interview on CNN "It's not a news organization so much as it has a perspective." (We heard the same comments back in 2007 from the moveon.org but that was not the White House.)

What is the difference between a legitimate news organization and not? Access is one. Is there more? Do we really want the White House telling us what speech is legitimate?

I hope not.

Why Rio Won Their Olympics Bid

For Rio, a major appeal was bringing the Olympics to South America for the first time.

IOC President Jacques Rogge said in the news conference afterward that in addition to its excellent bid, Rio had the "extra-added value of going for the first time to a continent that's never had the Games."

He also noted that Brazil helped its chances this year when it did not get the 2012 Games awarded four years ago.

"Rio remained humble," he said. "They wanted to listen, to repair their shortcomings."

Who knew that humility was one of the criteria. Do you think maybe we sent the wrong guy to plead our case?